


Gryffindor, Really?

by gracelesschoice



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Marauders, Marauders' Era, first year, starting hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-03-17 12:04:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3528713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracelesschoice/pseuds/gracelesschoice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Little Remus Lupin, who’s grown up listening to his dad’s stories about Hogwart’s and is only just five years old, is told he’s not going to be able to attend the school.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gryffindor, Really?

**Author's Note:**

> So I suck at titles. A lot.  
> Oneshot though :)  
> Find me on omgpadfoot.tumblr.com

Little Remus Lupin, who’s grown up listening to his dad’s stories about Hogwart’s and is only just five years old, is told he’s not going to be able to attend the school.

He’s still fascinated though, even when later that month he gets his first real taste of why he can’t attend and it makes a bit more sense. He gets hold of his dad’s copy of Hogwarts, a History and reads it cover to cover. More than once. Keeps it hidden in his room because his mum cries and his dad gets a funny look on his face when they find him reading it. He tries to explain that he knows he’s not going there, he just likes it anyway, even though he wishes he could go, he understands why he can’t. When he tells them this it just makes their reactions worse and his dad sits with his head in his hands for a long time at the kitchen table. Remus puts it back on the shelf, but later that night he sneaks back down and flicks through it in the big squishy armchair anyway and imagines what house he might be in.

When he’s older he hears his parents at the door, making their excuses for him, and he peeks and sees Dumbledore. When he recognises him as Hogwarts Headmaster he holds his breath because what if what if what if, and he dares to hope for the first time since he was five. 

Dumbledore is just stood in the living room waiting for Remus after his parents shoo him away and close the front door and Dumbledore asks if he wants to play gobstones. For the first time he can remember he’s being told he can have something that will pass for a normal childhood for the next few years, he can go to Hogwarts and see that enchanted ceiling in the Great Hall for himself and he can stop wondering what house he’ll be in. 

His mum and dad are so worried and so overprotective, but his mum tries really hard to just be happy. She tells him what a good time he’ll have and how she’ll write every month. She’s extra cheerful to make up for the fact that his father barely says anything on the matter, so Remus tries his best to convince them both that he’ll be alright, really, he can cope on his own he really can.

The day he leaves his dad takes him aside at the train station and he looks so sad when he tells Remus he’s going there to learn and not to make friends because that will make everything harder. He tells him he’ll have to lie to his classmates and that it’s easier if he can keep them at arms length. Remus agrees that it will be harder to have people close to him and he’s not really had friends before now so it should be easy just to not bother, especially if friends are going to turn out to be a complete hassle like his dad thinks they will be.

He’s too excited about the castle and the classes and his wand that he doesn’t think much about what it’s going to mean to live with other people that he shouldn’t befriend. He gets on the train and keeps himself to himself, he reads and doesn’t engage with anyone. He tells himself he’s going to Hogwarts and that’s enough, it’s more than he’s ever dreamed of or deserved. This is more than enough of a privilege for him, he won’t need friends, he tells himself, though he watches groups of people passing curiously.

He stares open mouthed the whole way across the lake up at the castle. He still can’t stop staring when they come up through the entrance hall and then into the great hall for sorting. 

When he’s being sorted he’s a bit nervous, but mostly excited. He’s already thinking maybe Ravenclaw like his dad, or Hufflepuff even. He freezes when the hat chuckles that it’s never sorted a werewolf before, but he remembers that the hat doesn’t speak out loud except to announce the house and tries to relax and calm down. He never imagined Gryffindor, but it’s that hats first suggestion and it seems amused by his surprise. He tries to argue with it and the hat humours him for a while before finally asks if he has any real preference. Remus supposes that no not really, he’ll go where the hat thinks best and of course with that the hat shouts Gryffindor.

So he goes and sits with the only other first year boy who’s been sorted into Gryffindor so far. It’s the boy who’s sorting caused a lot of murmuring and whispers and the Gryffindor table didn’t applaud as loudly for this boy as they did for the redheaded girl who was sorted to them next. This boy with long black hair and slate grey eyes who just gives Remus the biggest grin as he slides nervously onto the bench next to him. 

As the sorting carries on they’re joined by a short boy with plump cheeks and a a boy with glasses and the messiest hair Remus has ever seen who makes them all move along so he can squeeze in next to the first boy. When the sortings over Remus marvels at the appearance of the food and he’s unsure what to do about talking to people because he so rarely gets to meet new people and his dad’s told him it’s such a bad idea, but he can’t just not say anything. So he’s worrying and fiddling with the sleeves of his robes but when the applause dies down and these two black haired boys just burst out talking immediately. They don’t even introduce themselves they just start jabbering on about the whole affair like being quiet during the whole thing was a chore for them. They talk to Remus and the boy with flushed cheeks next to him about anything and everything and eventually they do introduce themselves, they’re James and Sirius and the other boy next to him is Peter. 

They get Remus to introduce himself and then he falls quiet because they’re just so loud and vibrant and they’re everything he’s not. But halfway through the main course he catches himself making a derisive remark in response to Sirius without thinking, not really imagining anyone’s even listening to him and he really doesn’t mean it. It’s a bad habit he’s picked up from talking to himself, to responding absently to characters on the television playing in the background while his parents are at work and he’s alone all day. He’s mortified because they all stop stare at him, and he can’t read Sirius’ expression. His cheeks burn and he ducks his head, apology forming on his lips but then James snorts and Sirius lets out this odd-but-fitting bark of laughter. He looks up and they’re just laughing and Peter joins in and James decides they are being a bit bloody rude actually aren’t they? 

So the rest of the dinner they actually have a conversation between the four of them, even if James and Sirius still do a lot of the talking, Remus doesn’t mind too much and tries to forget about his comment while sneaking glances at Sirius to see if he is mad. 

After a while he relaxes a little bit, Sirius seems to have completely forgotten about it, though Remus’ cheeks are still flushed for the rest of dinner. 

There’s just four Gryffindor boys this year, so they go up to the dormitory together where four beds are arranged in a sort of semi circle. Sirius and James choose the two beds in the middle, visible from the door and next to each other. So Remus shrugs and takes the one to the farthest right, next to Sirius’ while Peter goes to the left by James. 

While he’s changing behind his drapes into his pajamas, conscious that some of the larger scars that play across his chest and thighs will draw attention, Sirius is insisting they all go down to breakfast together tomorrow and the other two are agreeing. Remus thinks if he just doesn’t say anything they won’t notice, he’s still embarrassed by his remark at dinner and surely they’ll forget him soon enough anyway. He gets into bed, convinced that they’ll leave him be if he remains quiet, it’s not like he’s anything special, they all seem to be getting along well enough, so maybe he can just fade into the background? 

This is when he learns that Sirius has precisely no concept of privacy when he just sticks his head through the drapes with an ‘Oi, Lupin,’ and asks if he heard. So he pretends he didn’t and, at a loss for anything else to say, agrees. All the while he’s just staring at this boy who sits uninvited on the end of his bed and chats about what breakfast will be like. He’s still trying to figure out what he should be doing about the boy who ignores all social conventions that Remus is aware of before James shouts to ask if there’s always gonna be midnight chatter because he’ll be hexing someone if there is. Peter chimes in that it is late and Sirius bounds over to his own bed with a smile, a yelled goodnight and a cheerful threat to hex James first. 

All Remus can think is merlin they’re so loud and boisterous. Sirius is extra loud and James is extra boisterous and Peter is neither but he laughs a lot and talks freely and easily when then other two have a lapse in rambling. He rolls over and thinks that not making friends might surprisingly turn out to be a lot harder than making them with these three for roommates. 

Despite his dad’s warning, Remus smiles and thinks maybe, he’ll not go out of his way to talk to them, but maybe it would be okay to hang around with them a little bit for a while. Deciding he’d like that, Remus falls asleep listening to James and Sirius’ argument over who would win in a duel.


End file.
